Stagnation Leads to Immobility (880 words)

If there is one thing I fear in regards to my professional life it is stagnation. The field of computer programming is far from a closed field; it is an exciting industry to be a part of, one with low barriers to entry, huge rewards, big payoffs, job satisfaction, and dynamic, vibrant, change. It is because the field is still open and being explored that stagnation in this field is especially dangerous, and yet I’ve met far too many people who have grown stagnant, and I have yet to meet an employer who actually combats it.

How to Kill a Project (771 words)

I’m restless. At this time of night I should be calming down, relaxing, and preparing to go to sleep. I should be putting the day in a box and that box on a shelf, ready to archive it in some great warehouse of dusty, forgotten, boxes with faded labels. I’m not. I’m agitated; I’m frustrated; I’m wound up so tight I want to scream, yell, and engage in some full-contact physical activities (preferably ones where I’m the only one doing the full-contact, or I won’t last a minute).

Lazy or Exhausted? (748 words)

I may have stumbled upon something today, something I’m not sure I want to deal with. Some time when I was a kid my folks cautioned me against being lazy. My memory is hazy on the occasion, but knowing me I was probably being admonished for staying indoors reading books rather than going outside and playing, a condition I still suffer to this very day. Since that day (and probably even on that day) I’ve taken offense to being construed as lazy, but I’ve also been quite afraid of becoming lazy; somewhere, somehow our society has determined that laziness is a horrid trait placing a social stigma upon it. Quite often we blame things on the lazy, and quite often we label people as lazy when they don’t do what we think they ought. So when I force myself to be lazy and then feel physically better for it I find myself in a weird state of inner turmoil.

A Child Can Change Everything (544 words)

I find myself in a situation I honestly thought I would never be in; and yet I am not altogether surprised at the turn of events bringing me here, just greatly disappointed. An event that should have been heralded with cheers, celebrations, and loud buffetings of congratulations has instead been met with shock, stunned silence, and a general miasma of upset feelings. I have been made an uncle, by my very own brother-in-law, to a bastard.

A Break From Hiatus (134 words)

Life has been a whirlwind these past months. Some say time flies like an arrow, but I rather think time plays tricks on us advancing forward when no one is looking, and before you know it half your life has passed you by and all you did was blink. I should be back from whatever blogging limbo I was caught in. I have a few things on my mind that I will make time to write about, and as we decide to sell our house and buy a new one I’m sure that will present all manner of blogging fodder (read: I’ll have one thing to write about which I will put off due to packing and un-packing, and will then forget about and thus make up some drivel about the stress of moving).

I (heart) Ghost Stories

It dawned on me tonight after I finished reading yet another short fiction horror story. Horror is too broad of a category and is more often a miss than hit with me, and so I thought about what kind of horror stories I really like: ghost stories. I like haunted house stories too, though those are largely ghost stories, but I'm realizing that most anthologies and magazines of horror stories have quite a lot of stories that just don't interest me at all, and yet even the oldest and most classic ghost stories still keep me coming back to read them. Maybe I need to find some modern ghost story anthologies.

Addendum: Upon further reflection I can add what I call "creature" stories to the list as well. This would include stories like Frankenstein, the Mummy, wolf-men, and Dracula. The more imaginative the monster/creature the better, which may be why Lovecraft is quite fun.

Horror Gaming . . . at Night

Maybe I'm alone in this, or in the minority, but I cannot play any kind of horror video game (survival horror or FPS horror) when it's bright and sunny outside. The juxtaposition is just too great. I have a small collection of horror video games I'm itching to play, and now that the October has arrived bringing with it dark clouds, grey skies, and the nearing of an end to this accursed Daylight Savings Time, I will have plenty of time to indulge myself in some zombies and monsters!

Know Your Climax

All stories have a climax, a high point. Most stories put this at the end, leaving only a little room to allow the reader to climb down off the metaphorical mountain. There is good reason for this: when the point the reader cares about is resolved, they lose interest. I cannot help but wonder how, or even if, that point was missed with the latest Batman movie (The Dark Knight). We just got back from seeing the movie and I thought the movie was over and wrapped up a good 20 minutes (or more, I didn't check my watch) than it actually was. I spent that last bit just sitting there wondering why the movie was still playing and how I could have misread the signals. I'm not sure I did; either the climax came too soon, or I assigned too much importance to a minor plot point.

Did this ruin the movie for me? I'm not sure. It did leave me with a very different experience than with the first movie, and I will need to re-watch it in order to really judge it, now that I know how to watch it. I will have to conclude that for a first-time watcher who knows a little about the Batman universe, I thought the story was over before the director did, and that is probably not a good sign as far as I'm concerned.

Describe Myself in Two Paragraphs?

I'm starting a new job in a week and a half; it's a work-from-home programming gig, and I'll likely never meet my other co-workers face-to-face. It is a distributed office with people on three different countries. Early this week I received and email from my future-boss and he asked that I submit a two paragraph bio, presumably to be shared with the rest of the company so they might get to know me better.

So I've been trying to figure out just what to say in only two paragraphs, and trying to decide just how long I'll make my paragraphs. Not to sound too pompous but like most people I'm rather more complex than just two paragraphs. I have three major passions in my life, a small handful of hobbies, and thirty-one years of personal history that may or may not be relevant. I'm at a loss for what to say in only two paragraphs.

Oh well. I guess this means they won't get to know me very well from my bio. Maybe it won't matter. After all, they will only read my words and hear my voice (or snores, as I'm sure to have some early morning meetings).

Under-exposed Programmer

Somewhere it has been mentioned that a step in improving oneself as a programmer is to make a list of programmers you admire and -- that's where I stop. I have been so terribly under-exposed to programmers, let alone good programmers, that I have been working in a near-vacuum the past dozen years. I've seen and maintained my fair share of bad code; in fact among my friends we constantly try to steal the "I have the worst code-base to maintain" award. I know what bad code looks like. What I don't have exposure to is good code, and good programmers.

There are good programmers out there, ones far better than I, and I want to find some. I would love to work alongside at least one before I retire from this industry. My only question now is who are these programmers and how can I be exposed to their work? I'm open to suggestions.

Twisted Family Photos

Kids grow up so fast don't they? Just the last week Emma was 18 weeks old and now, at 8:31 PM PDT she'll be 19 weeks old! What is a dad to do? This dad is taking some pictures, only . . . they didn't turn out as you might expect. Take a look:

See Emma. See Emma Grow Up.

Babies are vastly interesting. Their lives have so little personal history it is simply amazing to watch how they learn. People keep telling me kids grow up fast, in fact I've heard it my entire life. In some regards children do grow up fast, but only because at first there is so much to take in that each new development, each new discovery, is a milestone in their short historical record. And yet I find it hard to document the minutia of Emma's life for public consumption. While I may be overjoyed when she discovered that the things at the end of those trunks sticking out of her diaper were in fact her very own feet, it's hardly good reading. The life of a father is a rather personal and intimate one; it is a life shared openly and, if done right, lovingly and deeply personal with a child. To that end each smile, each coo, each happy wiggle when I walk into the room fills me with a joy, an awe, and a satisfaction I can only hope all fathers feel.

Eight Weeks Later

Emma is now eight weeks old, an age we can hardly believe. I have always found that life's pace ebbs and flows; sometimes it feels as if the week/month/year will never end, and other times "yesterday" was weeks past. The kind folks at my last job wished me well when I left, so much so that I felt bad for leaving them, and a great many of them advised me to enjoy my time with Emma because she will grow up fast. I must have taken that to heart a little too much because in my mind I've already played out her first day of school, her first date, her graduation, her wedding, and her first child; you know what, I can hardly wait.

Say Roquefort!

more

Welcome to the Hive

I cannot remember a time when I did not suffer from seasonal allergies. My mother tells a story of when I was little and told my father that having allergies was awful, and he surprised me by saying he didn't have any; I'm told it made both of them rather sad as they realized I'd never know a year without allergic reactions. Every year about this time my allergies start up, and I get downright despotic about the opening of doors and windows in my house. It's something I live with, and yes, it has made me hate the spring, but it is nothing compared to the allergic reaction Holly has had to suffer since Emma's birthday.

Day One: A Good Start

The good news is I hit my goal of 2,000 words for tonight, and even better, I had time left over to relax and watch some TV. That was the good news. The not-so-good news is in a few different forms. First of all, my writing program of choice decided to stop counting words after it reached 354; so while I was hammering away well beyond 1,000 it still read a paltry 354. I've sent a little message to tech support to see what they have to say, and I suspect this is a Leopard induced bug. The second issue is one I was afraid would happen and is the reason I am not sharing my story: the tone is all wrong.

If I am to hit 50,000 words this month (and really the story should probably top out at 40,000 words) then I'm going to need to just write. But since I want to write a weird fiction tale in the vein of Lovecraft I need to pay attention to mood, tone, and atmosphere. Already I've had to eschew those things for the sake of getting the skeleton of the story down "on paper". This means, that as I suspected, I will need to edit the story (probably more than once) before I'm willing to let people read it, because the tone and atmosphere are really supposed to be important.

In the end, if starting a project is the hardest step then I'd say things started well. I was a little distracted trying to figure out the word count issue, and if the developers cannot fix it soon I'll have to spend time and effort switching my writing software. Hopefully I can cope until a patch is made available. Two thousand down; forty-eight more to go!

Welcome to The Shrouded Asylum

I have decided to write a Lovecraftian story for NaNoWriMo this year, and as if that were not enough of a challenge the protagonist is a woman. Not only will I be conscious of atmosphere, pacing, tension, and suspense, but I'll need to maintain a believability in regards to how a woman would act in the situations I'll be putting her in. This should be interesting, and my wife has offered to help me out, to which I am grateful.

Ready for NaNoWriMo 2007!

I threw my hat into the ring for NaNoWriMo earlier this month and I am now happy to say I am as ready and prepared for it as I can be. This afternoon I completed my outline and while that puts me at ease I am a bit concerned. This year's outline is the most detailed I've ever done, and while it's also one of the longer ones I've come up with I'm not sure if I have enough of a story to hit the word count. Time will tell, and if I finish my story early I'll either have to concede defeat or blather on intending to cut it December first. I can now safely rest the rest of October!

Writing Group

We had our final meeting tonight. Not a meeting so much as a small party, a time where we could relax from the pressure, talk about writing in general, and then take the plunge and read an excerpt from our novels. It was by far my favourite meeting of the entire time, and not just because I did not have to write anything; I rather enjoyed the social time. It was fun to get to know the people behind the frantic looks, the hurried typing (or writing), and those moments of frustrating writer's block. I will not miss the stress of writing, but I will miss getting together with other writers and talking about our shared passion (at least I hope we would all have some level of passion for the craft).

I have already been encouraged to join a critique group, and I will keep that in mind, keeping my ears open for any mention of a local group. I think I would grow and develop as a writer meeting with others, pointing out the excellent work, and politely marking the sections needing work. I liked the moral support of the group, knowing there were others out there struggling with me. I liked knowing I was not alone and that any pain I was suffering they would be able to identify with it. But that is over now; I am not laboring under any stress or agony of a shared deadline, just my own pressures (which can be crushing).

I will miss the times spent with other writers, but I will enjoy the memories. Who knows, perhaps I will stay in contact with a few of them online. Two of them have blogs (one, two) and I think all of them have email. Time will tell.

Life After NaNoWriMo

I will say this past month has been eye opening. I never thought I would be able to achieve what I have without more work than I put into it. That does not mean I didn't put forth a mammoth amount of effort to pour out 50,000 words in just 30 days; that was something akin to a herculean task. In the aftermath I now know that I could most likely accomplish a mere 20,000 words a month and consider that comfortable. The shock I have in making that statement makes November worthwhile. I would have thought it impossible to write close to 200 pages in a month (double spaced). And yet I did it. I did it because it was only 50,000 words, which meant 2,000 words a night, and after I figured out I could do 1,000 an hour . . . well the math is rather obvious is it not?

I like living post-NaNo because I proved to myself (and I am my harshest judge, critic, jury, and executioner) that you can eat an elephant if you only eat it one bite at a time. Looking back I amazed myself. My usual critical self was locked in a closet and threatened within an inch of its life and I was free; I was free to write whatever I wanted to write no matter how bad I thought it was, and in the end I no longer thought it was bad. When I came across a spot that I did not know what to do with, not knowing how to comfortably get from once scene to the next, I told my critic to, “Shut-up!!” and simply made the transition happen. When the outline was getting stale I kept on writing and found new life hidden under some frond of a fern decorating the forest trail of my outline, and I was excited again. Indeed, this entire month was exhilerating, to the point that I cannot wait to start writing again (and I need to, I have weekly obligations with Promethean Logophile).

There is one thing I do not want to forget, something extremely surprising to me. There were two days that I managed to write out 5,000 words in a sitting/session (I didn't remain seated the entire time). I thought those two days would be the hardest days I would face. I went into those days completely dejected and defeated, convinced I would not do more than 3,000 words before losing interest and desperately wanting a break. I was wrong. I was right in the effect that I did want a break, but that was before I started writing, and I did want a break while I was writing, but that was probably due to my deprivation of fun. Those two days found me digging deeper into my story, pulling out more detail, and more interest on my part in my tale. I don't really want to have to do it again, it was not much fun spending an entire Sunday afternoon and evening writing and not resting for Monday's work activities, but knowing that I have enough interest in my story that prolonged exposure actually got me excited instead of tired, that is something I want to keep with me.

From here I still have a long journey ahead of me. I only completed five chapters (for a fun exercise, calculate the average length of my chapters) and am perhaps a third of the way through part one (oh dear, oh dear). It has been suggested that I write a trilogy instead of a novel, and I might have to do just that. I'm not sure what will be involved structurally speaking, but I do know I will have to add in more climaxes and some resolutions (and probably more sub plots so individual books can seem complete). As for my writing in general, I will contribute to the afore mentioned site as well as my blog (which as been sadly devoid of new content most of the month of November). I will keep this site around to jot down any further notes as they come to me, reflections of NaNo. I do not yet know if I will keep a writing blog or journal in general. I'm not sure if I will need one, but if I do, I will announce it here. I do plan on cleaning up my five chapters and releasing an eBook version, which I will announce or post here, so stay tuned.

“So long, and thanks for all the fish.”

P.S. I will take a least a week off to watch T.V. and movies, read books and magazines, and generally relax. Consider the sloth, for I will be he.